


Saturn in a Mask

by bottlecapmermaid



Category: Blutrunst (fic)
Genre: Meta Essay, Other, non-fiction, saturn devouring his son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 07:18:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16849591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottlecapmermaid/pseuds/bottlecapmermaid
Summary: An essay on the significance of Saturn Devouring His Son in Blutrunst, by incurablenecromantic here on ao3.





	Saturn in a Mask

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IncurableNecromantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/gifts).



From the first chapter of Blutrunst, many forms of art are at the forefront of the reader’s mind, the characters’ interactions, and shadows of motifs for the story. The title itself is a nod to Bluebeard’s Castle, and Enoch thinks of the murder he sees in the newspaper in terms of art, specifically sculpture. The warped and twisted body, through Enoch’s adoring gaze, evokes Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, both the Eden and Hell portions. The Garden makes an appearance later in the story, and is not lost on Herod when he encounters it in Enoch’s bedroom.

Enoch and Herod’s initial meeting, the moment when Enoch first becomes interested in Herod as more than just a political or social connection to be collected and filed away for future use, is at an art gallery. Herod is lost in thought, smiling at a painting identified as Saturn Devouring His Son. The artist is not identified, and the painting is not specified as anything other than a depiction of child cannibalism. The two most likely versions of this are that by Francisco Goya in his painting Saturn Devouring His Son, produced between 1819 and 1823, or the one by Peter Paul Rubens, titled either Saturn or Saturn Devouring His Son, produced in 1636.

At this point in Herod Bethlehem’s life he has not yet had to resort to murder and cannibalism to sustain himself, and it is unlikely that Enoch has eaten human flesh either. Enoch has, however, developed an interest in the deaths of other human beings by the time he meets Herod, and has possibly been involved with the death of at least one person: Angel, as mentioned by Fred in his attempt to blackmail Enoch. The presence of this painting, whichever version it may be, foreshadows not only the cannibalism to come, but the horror of Herod’s leprosy and isolation.

In all versions of the story of Saturn, he devours his sons in an attempt to avert a prophecy saying that he will be cast down by one of them. He believes he must destroy them to preserve himself, to continue his own life. Perhaps he even hopes to take on whatever power would allow them to overthrow him by eating them. In the Rubens painting he initially appears healthy, with clearly defined arm and leg musculature. One does not see his madness and sickness until one sees his matted and wild hair and beard, and his eyes nearly entirely lost in shadows.

In the Rubens version of Saturn, the titan is hunched over his son, his prey, completely absorbed in the act of consuming him. His eyes are fixed on his son, not meeting the child’s rolling eyes but focusing somewhere in the region of his throat. Neither he nor the child acknowledges the viewer; Saturn is wholly devoted to the act of eating, and the child’s gaze travels out past the edge of the painting, perhaps seeking help. Saturn is too caught up in his own actions to notice anything else, and his son is incapable of communication, as a dying thing.

Saturn is a strange combination of human and animal traits; he crouches like an animal, consumes his prey raw and alive with only the use of his teeth, but supports himself with a staff, using a tool like a human, in an attempt to retain his upright posture. He is not as lost to the bestial act of eating one’s own young as he initially appears. In some way, perhaps only out of habit, he clings to the vestiges of his humanity.

The flesh of his son tears as the viewer watches; Saturn has seized a chunk of skin, muscle, and baby fat and torn into it with only his teeth. He aims directly for the heart, digging in and crushing his son against his undoubtedly blunt human teeth. He doesn’t have time to sit down and eat a meal; he eats as he hides against the rocks, away from anyone who might witness his crime. He drags himself and his prey away to hide like a beast, to keep others from taking his food.

No mercy is present in Saturn’s treatment of his son. Not only does he eat like a wild creature, he eats the child raw and alive. He does not even have the mercy to grant his victim a swift or easy death, instead leaving him to die from shock or blood loss, or from trauma to the heart. And Saturn is clearly aiming to reach his son’s very heart, ripping through the flesh and bone of his chest. He could have easily killed his child with his bare hands; babies are very delicate, a fact for which Saturn does not appear to care, as he lets the child’s head flop backward, unsupported and leaving his neck exposed. He clearly intents to kill his son, but he will not be quick or clean about it.

Saturn’s lack of interaction with the viewer is almost unwilling; he will not look at them, will not acknowledge them. He is utterly devoted to the consumption of his son, in a kind of intimacy only present between predator and prey. It is a kind of twisted devotion, to be so totally fixated upon something that all else falls away. He does not appear ashamed of his animalistic behavior; indeed, shame would require him to be aware that another is aware of what he has done, and he is hidden away with only a dying child as his witness. Shame is the fear of judgment by others, and in this painting, there is nobody in the world except Saturn and his son.

Hiding away in the desolate landscape, Saturn carries out his deeds under cover of dusk; the scene is lit by only three stars, identified as the planet Saturn and its rings, which at the time were believed to be stars in permanent alignment with the planet. Neither the sun nor the moon is present in this liminal time, perhaps allowing Saturn greater freedom to do as he pleases.

The most immediately striking aspect of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son is the look of naked horror on Saturn’s face. He stares at the viewer, or at least directly out of the plane of the painting. He has been seen, caught, witnessed. Having caught him in the act of cannibalism, the viewer becomes complicit in Saturn’s crime. They have seen him and now know what he has done, and cannot go back from that knowledge.

The horror on Saturn’s face could stem from any number of things: a realization of what he has done and continues to do, the exposure of his actions, the lengths to which he will go to ensure his own survival. His wild terror makes him simultaneously more and less human than Rubens’ Saturn. Rubens’ Saturn displays and feels no remorse, whereas Goya’s gapes in awful understanding. He understands that he cannot stop, even if caught. He clearly does experience the shame that Rubens’ Saturn lacks.

And yet, despite being found out, Goya’s Saturn continues. He has already killed his child, a headless, dripping doll clutched in both hands, why should he stop? He has eaten his son’s right arm, and started in on his left. He consumes the child from the top down, in descending order of importance of body parts: first he eats the head and the brain, then the right arm from the right hand inward, and then the left, leaving the body literally unarmed. He most likely killed his prey relatively quickly; a bite out of such a small, soft head would almost certainly be fatal.

Before taking his son’s head off, Saturn must have looked at him as he looks at the viewer, right in the eyes, but perhaps still blind with desperation. It is a uniquely human thing to interact face to face so often, and it makes Saturn’s animalistic nakedness and viciousness all the more striking. He too eats his prey raw and crouched in the darkness, without even the light of the stars to illuminate the horrors.

The possible awareness that Saturn’s shame and horror indicates makes his actions yet more terrible. He is aware that he will kill his own defenseless children in order to survive; not only does he kill them, but he consumes them raw and bleeding. He knows that what he does is hideous and wrong, but he cannot stop. His open mouth initially looks like the maw of a devouring beast, and that it surely is, but he may also be attempting to speak or scream—in disgust at himself? At the shame of discovery? In remorse for what he has become, a mighty titan huddled in the dark over raw meat like anything else desperate for survival?

In the Goya version of the scene, Saturn shows few signs of health or coherence. His body is unremarkable, primarily hidden in the shadows, but his hair is wild and unkempt. His grip on the body of his son is awfully tight, fingers digging into the delicate flesh, unable and unwilling to part with it. His expression is one of boundless distress, his eyes wide, mouth open but bizarrely toothless, eyebrows pinching upward. Are his teeth invisible in the darkness pouring out of him? Are they gone, is here merely a toothless thing crushing his son apart only by the strength of his jaws, not tearing with his teeth? He does not even have any tools present; no knife to defend himself or eat, no staff upon which to lean.

Saturn’s strange combination of human and animal characteristics makes his potential understanding almost pitiful, if not for the depravity with which Goya presents the event. His Saturn is outwardly powerful, but only at first glance. Upon closer observation, he is brought low by his own survival.

And so it appears for Herod Lazarus Bethlehem. He is deformed by disease and isolation, driven to cannibalism by starvation and a desperate need to survive. He is even called Beast. He surrounds himself in the trappings of humanity: a meticulously-kept home, elaborate dining rituals, and impeccable manners. And yet he hunts, and lures prey into his house. He particularly preys upon and prefers children, possibly because they present less of a struggle for a sickly man. Herod’s desire to survive is as wild and driven as Saturn’s, although Herod does not kill and eat members of his own family, and certainly not his own offspring. He hunts and kills and butchers, and believes he must do so to survive.

Herod is also acutely aware of the transgressive nature of his cannibalism. He fears that Enoch will want nothing to do with him once he learns the truth of what Herod has been feeding him. Bizarrely, this does nothing to stop Herod from plying his guest with dishes of human flesh. He has multiple plans in place for if he feels threatened by Enoch, and attempts to carry one of them out with the candelabra. He feels shame and humiliation over having to resort to such a strange source for food, but he does not experience any shame in himself when he eats. His shame is rooted entirely in the knowledge of others, not because he is horrified by himself. He fears judgment and punishment only because being found out would alter his freedom and the life he has stitched together for himself in his decaying house, with only his dog, his music, and his own continued existence for company.

 

In hiding his face, Herod makes himself more and less human. He hides what he considers the face of a monster under the unmoving face of a mask. He is able to control how people understand him through his tone and body language, but the absence of a moving human face makes him much more difficult to relate to as an entirely truthful person. By keeping people at metaphorical arm’s length, he prevents them from inquiring after his eating habits and thereby hiding his actions. He too crouches in the shadows, staring out over a bleeding corpse, but he hides it behind sauces and silver cutlery.


End file.
